The night of Sept. 24, 2007, saw the Patriots blow a two-run eighth-inning lead and lose the Atlantic League Championship Series to the Newark Bears. The gut-wrenching defeat marked the end of a season — and, although no one knew it at the time, the start of an era.

It is too soon to determine whether that era ended with Sunday night’s 1-0 loss to the York Revolution in the decisive Game 5 of the Freedom Division Championship Series, but it is difficult to ignore the symmetry between the last two season-ending losses.

“It feels exactly like it did in ’07,” relief pitcher Casey Cahill said in the middle of another somber clubhouse. “As soon as it’s over, it’s like, “What do we have to do to get ready for next year?’ We’re not going to sit back and worry about this all offseason. It gets us back to the drawing board.”

Not much can be written in permanent ink.

The future is uncertain for six-time All-Star Jeff Nettles and former league Player of the Year Josh Pressley — two of the six players from the playoff roster whose Patriots’ career began in or prior to 2007 — and several of their teammates.

“It’s the first year I’ve been here that I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Pressley said. “(Coming back) has always been kind of a foregone conclusion.”

The Patriots’ nucleus was only focused on the present in the aftermath of a loss in which the winning run scored on a bunt single, two-base throwing error and sacrifice fly.

“You have to have a lot of things go your way to win a championship,” pitching coach Brett Jodie said. “The ball has to bounce your way, you have to get the timely hits and that stuff didn’t happen as much as it usually does.”

As a result, the Patriots emptied their lockers Monday — a full week earlier than they expected.

“The fact is I wasn’t planning on ending the season this soon,” second baseman Matt Hagen said. “It’s coming as a shock to me and a lot of guys in this clubhouse who really didn’t expect to lose.”

Starting pitcher Brian Adams was one of them.

“Anytime you get in the playoffs and don’t win it, it’s really tough to take,” he said. “When you have a game like Game 5, you’re thinking, “OK, we’re going to have Monday off, Tuesday we’ll be practicing and Wednesday we’ll be going into the Championship Series.’ So when the game ended and we lost, it was really tough to swallow that the season was over.”

Manager Sparky Lyle attempted to ease that pain by shifting attention to the way the Patriots overcame a rash of injuries and beat the late-season odds to earn a franchise-record fourth straight playoff berth.

“I’m disappointed we lost, but I’m proud of these guys,” said Lyle, who later gave a rare clubhouse speech in which he urged players to “get ready for next year.” “I don’t think anybody expected to see us here — one game from the Championship Series — with all our injuries. They have no reason to hang their heads.”

And yet several heads were buried in arms or under towels as the Patriots, who last season followed up an 86-win regular season by becoming the first team in league history to win two straight titles, dealt with an unfamiliar feeling.

“This is uncharted territory,” Pressley said. “I think once everybody gets settled, they’ll think about how we were able to pick each other up. Once you get over Game 5 and look back at the other 144 games, you can say, “It was a great season.’ “

However, the unanswered question remains: How many more seasons are left in this particular group?

“If it is (the end) we’ll be thankful for the times we played together,” Adams said, “and if it’s not we’ll be excited to play together again. Though we lost this series, I think we would still go out as winners — winners of two championships and of being in the playoffs every year we’ve been together.”